Brian Kim Stefans's piece is both collaborative and autonomous at the same time. His piece was part of his participation on a virtual roundtable on sexuality and literature at SUNY Buffalo. The participants were then divided into groups. As part of the group each participant's job was to respond to the work of the individual that preceded them. His predecessor in this instance was a poet. Stefan found the poem "opaque," so he responded with a transformation of the text. By alphabetizing the words of the poem (with the exception of some punctuation within the original text that that disrupted this method) he created a series of moving micro poems using the words from his predecessor's contribution. Each micro poem is made up of words beginning with the same letter and appear flitting in and off the screen like fragmented dreamlike thoughts. The text appears in a linear manner, but does not allow you any agency in how the material is presented until the very end (not unlike the presentation of Inanimate Alice.)
Textual Elements/ Digital Affordances
Continuously moving text
Different animation forms as the text appears on the screen
The use of words within words
The building of words upon words
Representing the meaning of words by their presentation on the screen (i.e., the words emerge, height, many, tease, etc.)
Juxtapositions, both playful and provocative, abound: binaries/borders; cinder [Hélène] Cixous; conventional/cunt/curse; gender/ender; hershey hex; kiss/knives; not now www; polymorphous possibilities; troubled tryst, um-conscious, etc.
Analysis/Interpretation
In a lot of ways this attempt at creating a dreamlife of letters was accomplished. The words flit on and off the screen like the unpredictable snippets of narratives in our dream states. Nothing is static and words have life and their depth and meaning can be changed in relation to the words surrounding them and their size and representation on the screen.
Q: What's up with the prologue?
In Stefans’s original listserv response, he states that when arranging the words, he used a computerized process which did not account for some words. These words make up the prologue (Source). It's random and distracting. Could/Should he have left those words out completely?
Some terminology Alexandra Saemmer uses to capture some of the design moves here (From "Digital Literature - A Question of Style") Movie-grams: to describe moving words which express the same meaning in letters and motion.
Kinetic allegory: when several figures merge to form a single tropologic system; the animation makes the words more striking but also incites the reader to interpret a "story" the content of the words alone does not tell. Kinaesthetic Rhyme: When animations are repeated during a piece, creating an echo and implied relationship between textual units
And from Markku Eskelinen (From Cybertext Poetics): Transient texts: Texts that don't allow the reader to control the time and the rhythm of reading - despite Stefan's position that his work's not interactive, the reader has to prioritize fleeting perceptions and decide what to read and see.
To what extent does this second generation work retain the original focus on gender and sexuality? Does it matter?
How do you differentiate between wordplay and poetry? Is such a distinction important?
Is claiming reader agency through a youtube version to be applauded or shamed? :)
Overview
Brian Kim Stefans's piece is both collaborative and autonomous at the same time. His piece was part of his participation on a virtual roundtable on sexuality and literature at SUNY Buffalo. The participants were then divided into groups. As part of the group each participant's job was to respond to the work of the individual that preceded them. His predecessor in this instance was a poet. Stefan found the poem "opaque," so he responded with a transformation of the text. By alphabetizing the words of the poem (with the exception of some punctuation within the original text that that disrupted this method) he created a series of moving micro poems using the words from his predecessor's contribution. Each micro poem is made up of words beginning with the same letter and appear flitting in and off the screen like fragmented dreamlike thoughts. The text appears in a linear manner, but does not allow you any agency in how the material is presented until the very end (not unlike the presentation of Inanimate Alice.)
Textual Elements/ Digital Affordances
Analysis/Interpretation
In a lot of ways this attempt at creating a dreamlife of letters was accomplished. The words flit on and off the screen like the unpredictable snippets of narratives in our dream states. Nothing is static and words have life and their depth and meaning can be changed in relation to the words surrounding them and their size and representation on the screen.Q: What's up with the prologue?
In Stefans’s original listserv response, he states that when arranging the words, he used a computerized process which did not account for some words. These words make up the prologue (Source). It's random and distracting. Could/Should he have left those words out completely?
Some terminology Alexandra Saemmer uses to capture some of the design moves here (From "Digital Literature - A Question of Style")
Movie-grams: to describe moving words which express the same meaning in letters and motion.
Kinetic allegory: when several figures merge to form a single tropologic system; the animation makes the words more striking but also incites the reader to interpret a "story" the content of the words alone does not tell.
Kinaesthetic Rhyme: When animations are repeated during a piece, creating an echo and implied relationship between textual units
And from Markku Eskelinen (From Cybertext Poetics):
Transient texts: Texts that don't allow the reader to control the time and the rhythm of reading - despite Stefan's position that his work's not interactive, the reader has to prioritize fleeting perceptions and decide what to read and see.
To what extent does this second generation work retain the original focus on gender and sexuality? Does it matter?
How do you differentiate between wordplay and poetry? Is such a distinction important?
Is claiming reader agency through a youtube version to be applauded or shamed? :)